(Host) Rifle hunters are staging their gear this week, getting ready for Saturday’s opening day of deer season.
While the overall number of hunters has declined in the past decade, their economic impact remains strong, as VPR’s Nina Keck reports.
(Keck) According to the U.S. Department of Fish and Wildlife, Vermont deer hunters spend close to $190 million a year on everything from gas, food and ammunition to bright orange hats. Dick Hill, an avid hunter from Chittenden, smiles and says he believes it.
(Hill) "I’ll bet you if you look at myself and what my three sons that hunt and my three grandchildren that hunt – it’s up there probably close to a thousand to fifteen hundred dollars a year is spent on hunting and ammunition and clothing and stuff like that."
(Keck) Actually, statistics show that Vermont adult deer hunters spend nearly twice that amount. A good portion will go to gas stations and general stores like Chittenden’s Wooden Barrel.
(Door chimes)
(Keck) Manager Mark Hayes says the boost in business comes at a good time.
(Hayes) "It’s very helpful to us. It’s the biggest thing we have right now, before snowmobiling season kicks in. We have a real low once foliage season is over and it fills the hole."
(Keck) The distribution of spending is also important because rural areas of the state profit just as much as urban areas.
What’s troubling to Vermont’s Fish and Wildlife Department, however, is that the number of hunting licenses sold in Vermont has dropped 12 percent in the last 10 years.
To address that, the state has made a concerted effort to encourage more hunting. They’ve prohibited the taking of yearling bucks. That means hunters are finding older, bigger bucks in the woods. The state has lowered the price of youth hunting licenses and expanded hunter education programs.
The efforts seem to be paying off, as Vermont has seen a 3 percent increase in license sales over the last two years. And this year a record number of Vermonters have graduated from hunter education courses.
Back in Chittenden, Dick Hill thumbs through a journal he began almost 40 years ago when he wrote about taking his oldest son hunting for the first time. While he can appreciate the economic benefits for the state, he says for his family and many others like it in Vermont, hunting means much more.
(Hill) "If a family got into hunting, they would find that there is a family togetherness that lasts generations, not just a lifetime. I have four sons – one lives in California. But all three that are in Vermont, this Friday night all three will be here, all the grandchildren will be here and a friend from Massachusetts will be at my home to start the hunting season, which begins at sunrise the next morning. It’s a gathering and it’s a celebration. And it’s getting together again. It’s a bonding of brothers and a bonding of grandchildren and uncles and so on. That to me is what it’s about.”
(Keck) Smiling proudly, Dick Hill says his family already got a jumpstart on the season. His 11- and 12-year-old grandsons and 14-year-old granddaughter all got deer last Sunday during youth weekend.
For VPR News, I’m Nina Keck in Chittenden.
AP Photo/Jon-Pierre Lasseigne